There is no hiding from reality, and you have to wonder if the infantilising of our cricketers, with support staff to take every adult need away from them so that their minds are free to concentrate on cricket and cricket alone, is doing them a favour.
After the humiliating defeat to South Africa, Steve Smith bemoaned a loss of pride in the Baggy Green ... while hiding under a sponsor's cap.
The question was, How would David Warner cope with being the most reviled Australian since wotsisname from The Bachelor picked the wrong girl?
The choice between watching grass growing in Hobart and Alastair Cook batting in India would normally be a no-brainer. But, given its relevance to the future of cricket, this column made an exception and watched the England captain in Rajkot.
Cape Town, Birmingham, Nottingham, Galle, and now Hobart. Like falling cities in a losing war, the scenes of Australia's cricket disasters have come to our doorstep.
The best players are well cared for, but in Australia, once maturing cricketers understand that they are not going to play for their country, they find it harder and harder to see the point in playing at all.
If world events have told us anything in the past week, it is that forecasting is a game for overpaid mugs. The performance of the Australian team in the second Test match? Better ask an octopus. Even a cold and wet Hobart, normally a safe bet, will not be believed until it is seen.
No matter how great the margin between South Africa and Australia in the first Test match, it would always flatter the hosts. A final gap of 177 runs was no indication of the difference between the teams.
It is an oddity, or perhaps part of the lunacy, of contemporary international cricket that South Africa, an ocean away from home, will have more players to choose from for the second Test match in Hobart than will their hosts.
Before the start of Saturday's cricket, Steve Smith was receiving advice from his predecessor, Michael Clarke, about tactics for what promised to be a hard, hot day at the WACA. A fit-looking Clarke gave every impression that he would, most of all, have liked to be playing.
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